Umbra
by 0positiv
Summary: Like Orpheus he had been too impatient. She had not been ready. (The Bletchley Circle fanfic)


**Author's note: **A look into a killer's mind so do not expect fluffy bunnies...even if bunnies surely must be evil. I own nothing, just playing with the pretty creepy killer and putting him back when I'm done.

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She was so close. He could hear her panicked breathing, the clicking of her heels, could hear her whispering with her friends, her barely suppressed sobs. Feeling her near made the pain much more bearable. He could nearly imagine what it would feel like should she hold his hand now. He could nearly feel her just before everything went black.

It's all he'd wanted, to feel her again, to hold her again, for her to be his, finally.

But he'd been too impatient.

Like Orpheus he had beg and pleaded and bribed the gods of the underworld to return his love to him. He had wooed Hades in dark places with his offerings, trying to trade their souls, their lives, for hers. If even the god of the underworld could find a loving wife why should he deny a mere mortal the same bliss? Would not Persephone have mercy on him and sway her husband's mood? Especially for such an extraordinary woman?

She had been the most beautiful and radiant mind he had ever beheld. She had haunted his every moment, seduced him in his dreams like a succubus. But she had never been that sinister, she had never been evil. She was pure, an angel, not a demon. His angel to gaze upon and pray to. His radiant nymph with a mind to rival Athena's.

But she had never heard him in life, had pushed him away and done her best to avoid him.

He had been to forward with her, he knew that now. She was delicate in her own way even while being one of the strongest women he'd ever met. He had frightened her with his affection, with his longing to be near her, to love her and be loved in return.

He never could blame her for filing that complaint but it hurt him nearly as much as loosing her had.

Oh how he had cried while he held her cold and broken body. How he'd begged her to not be dead, to not leave him like this. And it was his fault as well. She shouldn't even have been in the building, she should have been on her way home, but he had begged her for one moment of her time, he had wanted, no _needed_ to explain himself. He wanted her to understand that she would never have to be afraid of him, that he would never hurt her. And her, being the kind and loving woman she was, had given in to his pleas. He had pulled her beneath the staircase. It was secluded there, private, out of earshot of the kind of people who only lived to collect information.

And then the world had come crashing down around them, the explosion deafening him, the dust blinding him. He reached out to her to protect her but could not find her, could not see her in the darkness.

He had called her name, run his shaking fingers over the rubble and the floor but when he'd finally found her it had been too late. Sitting alone with her in the darkness he'd felt as if he became a part of it, as if it was seeping into him like water into a dry rag. Him and the darkness became friends that day, allies. The darkness allowed him to be with her like he could never have been in the light.

When the men dug him out he felt like the light would burn him to ash. But he adjusted, he went back into their too bright world and played their games and pretended to be like them.

He made the psychiatrist believe that he did not with every breath he took long for the intimacy only darkness would bring. He convinced him that he was able to work again, that he had not changed at all.

But it soon became too hard keeping up the façade, too hard to put on wool every morning and act like a sheep. He could hear the darkness whispering in his mind, promising him pleasure like he'd never felt before. He felt his mask crumble, saw the fear and horror in their eyes as they realized that he wasn't who he had been before. They recoiled because he was more than them now, better.

He knew they were plotting against him, that they wanted to lock him away or kill him, so he decided to do their work for them.

It had been so easy, find a man no one would miss with his height and weight and age, sedate him, put his own ring on the stranger's hand and his keys in his pocket. When he set the room on fire he had to shield his eyes from the glare. He had wondered back then, if that was how he would finally die, in fire. It would be a fitting end.

He had felt free for the first time in his life as he'd walked away from the burning house, leaving all his masks behind, being himself for the first time in too long. He was finally free to do as he pleased. The only thing his old and new self had in common was the love for _her_.

No one would ever find him because no one would ever come looking for him. He was free now to somehow find a way to get back his love without anyone getting in his way. He had killed his old self and his new self was too clever to ever let anyone know it existed.

And yet…

And yet she had found him. But of course she had. She was the answer to his prayers, the grace Persephone had granted him.

Her mind had burned like the brightest fire and yet he had not recoiled, had not been blinded, but drawn towards it. Surely she must have felt it, too.

Surely she must have known that they were meant to be?

But like Orpheus he had been too impatient. He should have let her follow at her own pace, should have let her step out of the shades and into the world before approaching her.

But he had been scared she would slip from his grasp, that she would vanish like a dream. So he had turned around and looked for her. She had not been ready. He had ruined it all.

But at least she was there to see him off as he set out on his journey to the underworld. She was the only thing on his mind as he went to join the shades that had made their home in his head so long ago.


End file.
